STUART VARNEY (HOST): With the presidential conventions getting underway, is this a sign, the Dow at record highs, that we've got a better economy on the way, or is the Fed's money printing fueling a bubble that could become a major problem for the next president? To President Obama's former chief economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee. Austan, I hear a lot of talk that this big stock market rally is based on a lot of fluff, basically a lot of money printed all the way round the world.
AUSTAN GOOLSBEE: No, no you do not hear that talk. You utter that talk, that's what you've been saying for sometime.
VARNEY: Well have I got a point.
GOOLSBEE: I think this -- I think this, to the extent that this rally continues, I think it kind of makes a lot of the president's and the Democrats' critics look sort of ridiculous. Their wealth is going up, their profits are high, business has been very successful while they simultaneously say the socialists have taken over, they're destroying the world. I think it just looks kind of goofy.
VARNEY: Well that's a nice put down Austan, I'm goofy and ridiculous because I think that maybe the stock market has got something to do with money printing the world over.
GOOLSBEE: You are a decent just person Stuart. Only the statement was goofy.
[...]
VARNEY: OK, let me go back to Austan. I mean, is this rally just going to keep on going, or will the Dow hold at 18,500?
GOOLSBEE: Well I don't know
VARNEY: Because if it doesn't, the next president's got a problem.
GOOLSBEE: Yes. Look, rallies come and rallies go. I think it's hard to look at what's happening in the rest of the world, in Europe, with Brexit, in China, and feel overly confident that everything will just automatically go well. So, I think we should be a little paranoid. I saw Trish at the Republican convention, we said hi, I think both of you guys are being a little too pessimistic about the U.S. prospects. Growth should be higher, but growth has not been bad. It's kind of chugged along, the little engine that could, or the -- you know, we've been the tortoise not the hair. But now, this is the third-longest recovery that we've ever had on record in the United States, and we've generated more straight months of private sector job growth than we ever have before. So that part is at least good. It's got some weaknesses, but it does have some strengths.
